Card Hunter is a collectible card game meets classic fantasy adventure inspired by Dungeons and Dragons. The only thing you need is your skill at deck building to play your cards effectively to win. Card Hunter is refreshing as it does not rely on paying for unnecessary micro-transactions but rather your individual skill of adapting to situations at hand. Retaining a minimal subscription allows you several benefits such as a stipend of money for the cash shop as well as unlocking additional loot after each mission. If you’re defeated by a group of monsters or a rival adventuring party, it doesn’t mean you’re completely hopeless. By paying attention to the cards your enemy uses, you can counter their equipment with your own tailor-made deck. This is the heart of Card Hunter strategy. If you always stick with the same items or just equip the ones that appear to have the highest damage values, you are going to have a tough time defeating adventures and battling in PvP. A seemingly very high quality card at face value will be relatively useless against a certain monster type so it’s crucial to strategize every match accordingly.

The game is played on a gridded surface that defines the playfield. You can equip a maximum of three adventurers that come in several unique classes such as warrior, cleric, and wizard. Each adventurer is a character that can don equipment which composes the deck. Monsters in PvE are also characters; however ,they share a deck if they are of the same type. For example, three goblins share the same deck per turn. Whereas the Dragon next to them, has a deck exclusive to itself. Each deck is shuffled randomly before the start of the battle, and the number of cards remaining can be seen alongside the owning character’s portrait. When all the cards have been drawn from a deck, its discard pile is reshuffled into the deck to replenish it. In PvP, the opposing player has the exact same system as you, with each adventurer having their own deck of cards composed of their equipment.

Killing opposing monsters or characters earns victory stars which are used to satisfy the objectives of each map or adventure. Most monsters are worth one, but important monsters can be worth more depending on the map. In PvP games, killing an opposing character will get you 2 victory stars. Sometimes a board will have glowing yellow squares on it, called Victory squares. These earn a victory star for whichever player has the most characters occupying victory squares at the end of the round. Cards can fall into Attack, Move, Block, Assist, Utility, Boost, or Drawback categories. Each piece of equipment confers a number of cards based on its type and the higher quality the item the better and more cards it may offer for your deck. So a deep strategic layer beneath your characters’ base abilities comes in the form of the type of equipment you don them with.

The game provides amazing value with a lengthy single player storyline and robust PvP matchmaking with a minimal micro-transaction interruption. However cosmetic items are somewhat enticing as is the benefit of additional “loot” rewards for retaining a subscription. However, even with these benefits rewards came quick and easily and while playing I did not feel forced into paying. That said the game does lock adventures for 24 hours after completion as well as locking 11 “epic” adventures unless you pay. Some may take issue with that.